Friday, August 17, 2012

This week has been bitter sweet as we hurried to squeeze in a few more summer activities before school. We went swimming one last time at the city pool, spent one last morning playing at the park, and had one last picnic with our friends. I am not ready to send my kids back to school!

Morgan walked up the stairs backwards...

and went down the slide backwards. Silly girl!

One little...

two little MONKEYS!

Some gymnastics practice.

We invited all the kids in their Primary classes to come celebrate at the park with us. The kids had so much fun running all over the park, climbing trees, and eating lunch with their friends.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Zane was so anxious to turn 6 and be old enough to go to school. (Don't tell him he could have gone at age 5.) He started counting down the days at 19 and we checked the calendar every day to see how many more days until his BIRTHDAY.

Finally! It's birthday time! There were presents to open.

Thank you Uncle Rick and Aunt Sharon!

And then there was a birthday dinner.

Waiting for the pizza.

Me and my favorite Zane!

Then there was birthday cake. My oven died so we had to buy a cake and Zane insisted that I add the Spiderman web and his name. Funny how those little things can be so important to them.

And then presents to open... Yes, everything was Spiderman.

Zane blew out all the candles on his cake and announced that now his wish will come true.

A few days later, more packages arrived in the mail.

And thank you for the movie, Brit & Levi. (Not sure if he's ready for this one.)

Monday, August 13, 2012

The biggest thing I learned from doing summer school with my kids was the need to be flexible. I wanted the experience to be enjoyable for all of us which meant that some days we just read for 20 minutes because there was lots of SUMMER to enjoy.

I quickly discovered that my daily plans were about 3 hours of school and that was too much. We didn't accomplish as much as I had hoped, but we did a lot.

I spent a great deal of time working with Morgan on identifying parts of a story and how to summarize. I think she understands the concept better but we still need lots of practice.

We did some fun stuff too...

We made monsters!

This activity was more for Zane as we counted eyes and noses. The kids had fun creating silly monsters and then we shot them over with rubberbands. That was the best part!

We worked on figuring out where we fit into this BIG world. We learned about continents, countries, states, and cities. We also practiced our address and phone number.

The kids had fun seeing where they live compared to where other family members live. It all looks so close on the map.

We worked on counting and adding money. How much does that ice cream cone cost?

Zane worked on counting all the ice cream scoops. Yum!

We did some fun art and sensory things too. I made kool-aid playdough (grape was the best) which they used to create letters and shapes and just create. Zane picked this fun shadow art project made with water colors. It took a little patience and a steady hand to get that cowboy just right.

We learned about the pioneers. Morgan helped me put together a skirt and bonnet for her to wear to our pioneer breakfast. (Brit, if you had kept yours, you could match your sister.)

We talked about how the pioneers didn't give up, even when the journey was tough.

They just kept walking!

Is this school?

Sometimes the kids didn't even know they were learning. What happens when you add liquid water to solid dirt? A whole lot of muddy fun!